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COMPCUT confidently meet the CMC materials challenge

Over recent months Sharp & Tappin have been working closely with the Materials Testing Team at the prestigious National Composites Centre (NCC) in Bristol to mount a series of extensive cutting trials on samples of Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) materials.

Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC) form a sub-group of composite materials as well as a subgroup of ceramics and are created by embedding ceramic fibres within a ceramic matrix. Both the matrix and fibres can comprise any ceramic material, thus carbon and carbon fibres can also be considered a ceramic material. They are lightweight, hard and stable at high temperatures and are often used in the aerospace industry.

The tests at the NCC have been undertaken using a range of our Compcut Advanced Composite Plate Saws and have successfully confirmed their ability to easily and effectively produce rectangular specimens from the CMC test materials – consistently displaying superb precision, cut quality, perpendicularity and parallelism.

The Materials Testing Team at the NCC are also now employing our first pre-production Compcut PCR 500 Router to cut dog-bone shaped specimens from CMC materials. The results have also proved very positive with the Router producing the same levels of proficiency as the Compcut saws albeit at a slightly slower rate, due to the Router’s different approach to the cutting process.

Ben Sharp, CEO – Sharp & Tappin comments;

‘We are proud to be working with the team at the NCC in testing these specialist composites and are naturally delighted that both the Compcut Plate Saws and the new Router have performed so well.

These tests confirm yet gain the versatility and adaptability of our Compcut range of machining solutions offering clients the ability to cut a wide spectrum of different materials to an extremely high standard, with a consistent cut quality and exceptional tolerances for both parallelism & perpendicularity.

In addition we are pleased with progress in developing our new Compcut Router which will be formally launched at the Advanced Engineering Show later this year – the first prototype of which was developed for the NCC and as such has successfully met every challenge set before it!’

The Compcut PCR 500 Router is already attracting extensive interest throughout the UK and from Europe in advance of its official release.

If you require any additional information on the Compcut Range of Advanced Composite Plate Saws and Router and/or would like to arrange a demonstration please contact Jon Small, Sales Manager.

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